Wednesday, April 13, 2011

PMBOK: Stakeholder Register

The Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide (PMBOK Guide) defines stakeholders as "persons or organizations who are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively affected by the performance or completion of the project." Stakeholders may include customers/users, the project sponsor, portfolio/program managers, PMO, project manager, project team members, functional managers, operations manager, vendors or other business partners.

An important tool for stakeholder analysis is the Stakeholder's Register. Here's an example:

Some tips:

If you have a PMO there is probably has a template or system you should use.

Columns may need to be customized with each project.

It needs to be kept updated over the life of the project.

Much of the value comes from thinking of the project from each stakeholder's perspective and incorporating that understanding into the management of the project.

It's a useful onboarding tool for other project members. Keep that in mind when creating/updating.